


You Are The Earth On Which I Travel

by th_esaurus



Category: Jonas Brothers
Genre: Incest, M/M, Multi, rancher AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:50:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe pressed his hand into the small of Nick's back, the three of them trying to stifle their breaths and listen instead for that feral panting, the soft pad of unwelcome paws on their land. Nick ended up lodging two bullets in the paddock fence, another three lost to the night, though Kevin got a deep nick in against the wolf's hind leg. They caught it from the trail of blood that shimmered darkly, reflecting moonlight, found it limping pitifully behind the stables. Joe took his pistol and shot it between the eyes. Nick was thirteen, and he watched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are The Earth On Which I Travel

Nick wakes with the birdsong, and a dull, wooden ache in his shoulders. The sun has barely begun to rise, just diluting the sky with the faintest golden sheen, the clouds low and grazing about the mountaintops. Nick stretches, cracks his bones, and leans down to press his palms flat against his toes. The morning is still cool, but the threat of a sweltering day hangs in the condensation on the dirty windowpane. Nick pulls on a loose pair of slacks and a thin shirt, hitching his braces up over his shoulder and rolling up his sleeves.  
  
Outside, he lets himself yawn widely, tiger-like, and loosens out his limbs with a wild shake on the front porch. He scrapes a few stray curls back from his forehead, surveying the land. It's vast and unchanged. The roll and swell of the fields and the familiar gradient of the early sky; the empty paddock, fences not quite aligned, and the stables a little into the distance; the forest that marks the edge of the land on the west side, dense and sudden. Nick takes it all in lazily, rubbing the back of his neck and smoothing down a few stiff tendons with his thumb and forefinger. He pads barefoot into the kitchen and picks up a bronze kettle, sniffs the inside, and fills it with rainwater from a sodden barrel out back. Nick boils three tin mugs-full of coffee, brushing off the soles of his feet while he waits, and takes them inside, putting one down by Kevin's bedstead and one by Joe's mattress. He leaves Joe's an extra yard away: he thrashes in the mornings, fighting off his encroaching consciousness. The third mug Nick drinks himself, sipping slowly, sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room, watching his brothers sleep on. Joe drools steadily onto his left arm. Kevin sleeps foetus-like, his ankles crossed one on top of the other.  
  
Nick swirls the dregs of his coffee, decides against drinking them, and pulls on his socks and boots. The sun has ambled into view, lighting the land a pallid yellow that doesn't yet do it justice. It shouldn't be sickly, because it's vivid and emerald and alive. Days like this, Nick often still feels that same wonder he knew the first morning, when the light found its proper place in the spectrum and drew back its cold blanket on the land; how it seemed to explode in a sepia-green shimmer.  
  
Nick saddles up and rides out into the birth of the sun.   
  


*

  
  
It's a far more charitable time when Nick trots back up to the ranch: Kevin's hauling a few saplings they cut down last weekend from the stable to the back yard, shirtless and already baking in the gathering heat. He waves as Nick rides up, and motions with two fingers at the open door. Nick ties his steed off on the porch and tramps inside, his boots heavy but some spring in his step. The herd looked well and he fancies there's still wind whistling through his curls, his skin invigorated from the ride, so he isn't entirely calm. Joe's still curled around his blanket, his coffee sad and cold and ignored.   
  
"Joe," Nick says, not quietly, crouching beside his head. "Joe. Get up."  
  
"Grwwygh."  
  
"Time to get up, Joe."  
  
"Go 'way."  
  
Nick rolls his eyes fondly, this routine as familiar as Joe's face, the sleepy crease of his features. He cards his fingers through Joe's thick hair, tugging gently. He needs a wash. Maybe they'll take the horses down to the stream later. Joe reaches back and swats at Nick's wrist, turning lazily and unfurling his limbs in a slow, strange salute to the ceiling. He's hard between his open thighs. Nick thumbs against Joe's lips, dry where they plump out but damp in the corner, and shuffles closer to Joe, reaching his hand below the threadbare blanket and beneath Joe's breeches. Joe utters grateful, tired noises and leans into Nick's stroke, almost fully awake now.   
  
The muffled thud of Kevin chopping firewood echoes through the cramped room. Joe's toes scratch against the floor, hanging over the side of his paltry bed. He puts his arms around Nick's neck childishly, and says, "I've got it. You go—nnh."  
  
"Okay," Nick replies, nodding, uncurling his fist and shaking it out lightly. He dips his head, untangling himself from Joe, and wipes his damp palm against his thigh. Joe finishes things off, and Nick doesn't stick around to watch. He's seen it all before, and trusts Joe to clean up after himself.   
  
Instead, he heads outside, leading his horse to the paddock first, then trotting the other two out in turn. He heaves a few bales of hay over the fence and lets them have at it. It's a slow kind of morning, months between the roundup, where the earth seems flatter than usual and the air thinner. Nick fancies he can hear eagle calls, and eavesdrops on nature for a while, listening to the rhythms that the breeze stirs up: a palette of birdsong, miles apart, and the creak of the house, and the horses, contently smacking their lips and hooves. Everything punctuated by the bass of Kevin's steady axe.   
  
Nick wanders into the back yard, scuffing his toes against the dry dirt path that winds around half the estate and loses its way somewhere out towards the forest. He glances over his vegetable patch and makes a note to water the heat-beaten shoots in the early evening, once the air has cooled. Summer has settled itself in for the long haul now, and Nick's arms and cheeks have caught a healthy blush. Kevin drinks in the heat, his skin glowing, golden and sweat-sheened. It makes him look far older than Nick, when the difference isn't all that great. Nick watches the slide of Kevin's shoulder blades for a while, the crisscross of muscles and tendons working like machinery each time he swings down. Kevin notices his gaze, after a while, and perches the axe over his shoulder. "Joe's up?"  
  
"He's getting round to it."  
  
"Tell him he's got an assload of chores to see to."  
  
Nick shrugs. "He won't do them if I tell him to."  
  
"So make him," Kevin says, with a grin he can't hide. He wipes the sweat from his temple with the back of his hand. They both know Joe; they both know Joe won't be ordered about like some little prairie wife. The boy bares his face to the day eventually, ambling outside in cuffed trousers and an open, sandy-suede vest. His fly is partly unbuttoned, hanging loose over his pelvis and baring superfluous skin, but that's not anything of note. He hands Nick his coffee mug, tells him it's gone cold.   
  
"What do you want me to do about that, Joe?" Nick asks wryly, dipping his finger in the stagnant liquid and flicking it on the ground. It makes tiny pools, dust and dirt congealing in musty opals on the ground.   
  
"Invent fire," Joe says, spreading his arms wide. "Tame the sun, Nicholas." The light makes angles spill like inkblots over his face and jaw.  
  
Nick smiles, that quirk of his lips only Joe can elicit. He throws the rest of the coffee aside, claps his hand against Joe's shoulder just quickly, and says, "Maybe tomorrow."  
  


*

  
  
They don't swim that day, caught up in the loose jumble of menial tasks set for them by the passing hours, but the next morning Nick rides the mile across to the stream. He could walk it, but he knots a long rope around Costello's reins and loops it around an old silver birch, letting the mare soak her muzzle in the fresh water, drink deep and clean. He unhooks his rifle from its holster on her saddle, and puts it a few feet from the water's edge. Nick has been holding a gun for three years now, after Kevin put one between his palms – taught him briskly how to cock it, reload it, how to crook the butt against his shoulder to lessen the jolt of rebound – and then took Joe and Nick to crouch on the front porch, wolf-hunting in the oil black night. Joe pressed his hand into the small of Nick's back, the three of them trying to stifle their breaths and listen instead for that feral panting, the soft pad of unwelcome paws on their land. Nick ended up lodging two bullets in the paddock fence, another three lost to the night, though Kevin got a deep nick in against the wolf's hind leg. They caught it from the trail of blood that shimmered darkly, reflecting moonlight, found it limping pitifully behind the stables. Joe took his pistol and shot it between the eyes. Nick was thirteen, and he watched.  
  
He feels uncomfortable with that gun. It's just a necessity.   
  
Nick strips off entirely, the mellow warmth of the air hardly a change from his clothes, and clambers down the rocks into the stream. It's cold, and he bristles at the shock of it but walks on anyway, his legs wide as he wades like a stork into the water. Dead centre, it reaches just above his waist. He can hear footsteps in the distance, heavy boots biting down on soft leaves, brittle bark. Nick heaves in a mighty breath and holds it, dunking his head under the chill water and hiding his face between his knees. It's noisy in this underwater chasm, but a different kind of noise: the yelling current, sparks and bubbles, his own pulse rattling like a steam train across the bridge of his nose, chasing out the cold. He wonders how long he could stay down here; games of chicken with Joe have given him a rough idea, but Joe cheats. He tickles.   
  
Joe is there when Nick surfaces, the spray from his hair and lips peppering Joe's naked skin. "Gross," Joe says mildly.  
  
"You're gonna get wet anyway," Nick replies, and Joe splashes him petulantly. Kevin, on the shore, puts his gun down next to Nick's and settles himself on the rocky outcrop, pulling off his boots. It's almost strange to see them both in the day: only at dusk do they ever consistently sit together. It's Joe who demands Nick's attention, though, his hands already at Nick's broad shoulders. "What are you even doing here? I thought you had socks to darn."  
  
"Don't even," Joe warns, pushing at Nick's shoulder roughly. "I smell." He shoves his armpit in Nick's face to illustrate this, and Nick coughs dramatically, clutching at his face and rolling his eyes in a dying feint. Joe laughs. Kevin laughs. They're good sounds that peal out around the forest, dissolving into the dappled light.  
  
Kevin, always prepared, tosses Nick a bar of soap, knotted through with twine, that he catches deftly and ties to his wrist. Joe settles down, kneeling on the stony riverbed while Nick scrubs at him with the soap and his knuckles and fingernails. They trade places and Joe takes his time, lifting Nick's arms up and tilting his head to better reach his neck. He washes down Nick's spine and pauses at the swell of Nick's behind, tapping him lightly, thoughtfully. His hands wander forward, reaching around Nick's slim waist and taking his dick in hand, without any real purpose. Nick elbows him. "Hey, hey," Joe says, placating.   
  
"Not now," Nick mutters, very aware of Kevin watching them from the shore, scouring his boots clean with a damp rag.   
  
Joe presses his face to Nick's back, strokes his dick once, playfully. He's grinning, the pearls of his teeth a hard contrast to his soft skin. "It's not like you've got much to fool around with, anyway."  
  
"I—it's cold, Joe!"  
  
"It ain't the cold's fault you've got a tiny dick," Joe says, unusually crude, and Nick turns suddenly at the shock of it, not sure whether to laugh or thunder. He settles for jumping at Joe, grappling his arms around Joe's neck and pulling him under the shallow water, pinning him underneath with his strong legs, a slow-motion wrestle. Winded, a breathful of bubbles spurts up from Joe's lips as he laughs and chokes, dragging water into his lungs. Nick gets a fist in Joe's hair and screws his knuckles against Joe's skull before releasing him. Joe surfaces first, his wet coughing muffled by the water pressing against Nick's ears, and he watches Joe's legs for a moment, skinny at the ankle and growing thicker around the thigh, downy and darker than his own. They move away from him, and Nick breaks the water's skin, heaving in a huge breath that leaves his throat sore.   
  
Joe scrambles up the mud and rocks, his wet feet carrying him badly, and climbs up the grey outcrop that hangs over the stream, scraping his palms and elbows against the granite and failing to care. He stands astride nature, naked and outspread, facing the woods, and Joe crows like a wild thing, shaking his hair out like a rain-soaked dog, shaggy and ecstatic. He brays again, his eyes locked on Nick's, seizing his gaze as though Nick had the choice of looking away. His feet slip on the pebbles and he circles his arms like a boyish windmill to keep his balance. The water below him is painfully shallow.  
  
"You'll fall," Nick calls, taking a wide step towards Joe as if he could catch him, from that height.  
  
"I'd soar," Joe yells back, spreading his arms and leaning forward as though the momentum might carry him up and away forever. That thought scares Nick even more and he reaches up, trying to grab Joe's ankle, to anchor him. A few loose grains of dirt dislodge under Joe's feet and cascade down the outcrop into the stream, no match for the current.   
  
"Joe," Kevin says suddenly, firmly. That ends it. Joe's shoulders slump and his arms flop down next to his sides. He looks down at Nick, his dark eyes roaming over Nick's face, as though just now recognising the worry pulling down his mouth, the unknowing fear that makes his temple crease. He swallows and turns away, shooting a face at Kevin instead. Kevin watches him slink back into the water; watches until Joe sinks down, only the swaying ebony strands of his too-long hair visible, dancing angrily on top of the stream.  
  


*

  
  
Nick and Kevin trot Costello slowly back to the ranch, droplets of water trailing down Nick's neck and disappearing under his shirt. Joe had lingered in the woods, stubborn and petulant. "When you get pneumonia and die," Kevin had said, gathering up the guns and checking the shot, "don't think I'll be weeping for you." It's harsh, but Joe never takes much to heart.  
  
In the absence of their Pa, Kevin has dutifully become the father figure; consistently but not always easily. He spent seventeen years being the biggest brother before the role was thrust upon him. Joe complicated matters. Joe discovered the wilderness, the wide and unending space that lay before him, and perhaps the awe of it broke him a little. He became untamed, suddenly answering to no one but the voice of the wind. He loves his brothers fiercely, but this life of routine and lag and great chasms of time without a lick of excitement can't hold Joe down. He pushes against his cage of perpetual boredom, riding out alone for swathes of time, disappearing and reappearing at his leisure. Joe is a fighter, and the only people around him to fight are his family.   
  
Nick worries about him. Nick hates worrying about him.  
  
Kevin holds Nick's waist loosely as they ride, the spread of his fingers neither imposing nor entirely welcome. Nick knows it's his instinct to protect, but Nick's growing now, almost grown. It's Kevin who taught him how crucial self-sufficiency is out in the lonely West, and Kevin who struggles to give Nick and Joe entirely free reign. Nick leans back into his touch, reassuring him on behalf of them both, and then tilts forward again, nudging his heels against Costello's bulk.   
  
As they reach the ranch and dismount, Kevin puts his hand abruptly over Nick's, on top of the saddle. He just holds him there for a moment, his other hand scratching the back of his neck and the faint stubble dusting the corner of his jaw. When he talks, it's not his voice of authority, the tone he pulls out when he's pretending to be their father. It's just Kevin, just another son, the same as Nick. "Joe's—an idiot," he says, carefully. "You shouldn't mind him."  
  
Nick shrugs. Kevin twines their fingers together, squeezing briefly, then untangles them. He looks like he wants to say more but can't or won't, so Nick ducks around under his horse's flank and presses up into Kevin's space. He lets Kevin sigh out, hold on to the back of his neck and pull Nick in, their lips touching together. Nick has never kissed Kevin the way he does Joe, doesn't know him like he knows Joe's mouth, all needy and handsy and wet. Even so, it's not an entirely foreign experience by this point. Kevin undoes a little against Nick's patient lips.   
  
"I know," Nick says once they pull back, bumping his fist softly against Kevin's chest. Kevin smiles lopsidedly, ruffles Nick's brunette curls. They trot Costello back to the stables, and Nick sets to the floor with a rake, while Kevin briskly checks the horses' hooves.   
  


*

  
  
Winter washes over the land in great swathes of colour: molten amber, then a sultry blushing brown, and the boys know that white frost will come soon enough. Life goes on much the same, though. Autumn brings the brief thrill of harvest, and Nick and Joe spend a few days with their hands deep in the sodden earth, plucking and stockpiling the root vegetables Nick planted in spring. He tended the crop alone as it sprouted, fiercely protective of the only patch of green he could call his own, but he lets Joe help with the uproot, a task that leaves them both sweaty and satisfied. Joe takes an armful of carrots and potatoes inside, the rest bound for the cellar, and cooks them with what's left of the meat. The three of them sit on the porch that evening, eating Joe's stew from bowls perched on their laps, chatting easily and tuckered out. Nick perches in the middle, and leans into Kevin's shoulder just briefly, then against Joe for the rest of the night. They don't part even for a minute in the end, as Nick crawls into bed with Joe shamelessly, Joe's stove-warm, dirty fingers making tracks on Nick's belly.  
  
As a chill blankets itself over the ranch, Kevin's inner city trips become more frequent. Out of necessity more than anything, Kevin leaves the two of them be for a few days at a time. It's a day-long ride into the city, and he holes up in a local inn for two nights, making connections in the trade, checking on long-standing business partners, and stocking up on supplies: food they can't grow themselves, bullets, sometimes new threads, sometimes new tools. Joe joshes with him, telling him to bring back a bottle of finest whiskey, but Joe once made himself sick on cheap beer and nobody wants to spend another foul evening rubbing his back until he falls asleep on himself. Kevin just humours him sardonically, saluting an affirmative he won't follow through.  
  
Nick likes it when there's three of them and always has the sense of missing a piece when Kevin is off doing business or Joe is off doing his own thing. Nick considers himself one side of a triangle, but Joe is far less defined. He becomes unleashed when Kevin's away. It's not that he's doing so much different, as he's wont to take no-one's advice anyway; he's just going about his life with less of a sense of rebellion.   
  
Instead of riding out alone, disappearing for most of the day, he asks Nick to come along with him. "Where you headed?" Nick asks, aiming for casual. It irks him that he doesn't always know where Joe goes – that Joe has a life apart from Nick. But Nick's never put that into words.  
  
"Just to spook the cows," Joe replies, shrugging.  
  
"I guess I'll have to go look after them, then," Nick finishes, nudging his shoulder against Joe's. Joe puts an arm around his waist, tugging him close, briefly. He's always physical, but there's a tender edge to it now that they're alone. They mean to go out straight away, but Joe's distracted by the curve of Nick's body, his boyish hips, and he tugs the neck of Nick's shirt down, kissing his collarbone.   
  
It hasn't always been like this, but maybe it has. They're secluded and have little other human contact, but Joe and Nick don't touch each other out of necessity. They're seeking each other more than just release, and Joe had made sure right from the start – tender sixteen, sweet hands, sweeter breath – that Nick didn't mind. Nick had been tending to his awkward teenage erections out back by the stables, crouching where stone met the dirt and scuffing up his knees. Joe noticed, of course, the shamefaced scowl and crosshatch of dry blood and skin on his kneecaps. He told Nick not to do it like that, and Nick mumbled an apology, that he didn't know how else to—he just thought that—and Joe had clutched his wrist and put his right hand against Nick's crotch and asked, "Can I do this? Can I do it?" and Nick had merely nodded.  
  
They're flagrant about it with the house to themselves, but even when they grasp for subtlety, Nick knows his eldest brother is no fool. They all sleep in one room, and Nick makes noises in his throat when he comes, Joe's name catching and distorting in his windpipe into some sound of need. He's heard Kevin shift and turn to the wall in his bed as Joe shuffles across the floor closer, and Nick's seen Kevin's boots appear briefly through the crack in the nearly-closed door; walk in, pause, scuff the floorboards, and leave again.   
  
In those younger, formative years, Joe had one evening wandered out across the wilderness with his pistol and a hunting knife strapped to his ankle with a bootlace; by nightfall proper, he still hadn't returned. Nick had tossed restlessly in bed for an hour, nursing an erection that refused to dampen through force of will, so he woke Kevin with a gentle shake, feeling shy and petulant and too childish. "Joe's not—He usually—" Nick tried, keeping his arms pinned to his sides and looking down.  
  
"It's not Joe's job," Kevin said strangely, and after a moment, pulled Nick towards him by the hip. His back curled against Kevin's chest, Nick let Kevin stroke him in stuttering bursts until he uttered one name and spilt painfully into Kevin's palm.   
  
Joe was back by morning, clutching two dead rabbits by the tips of their ears and grinning pleased as a pip.  
  
They head out a while later. Joe doesn't bother to tuck in his shirt, just shrugs on a jacket and some gloves and an extra pair of winter socks. As Nick's layering up, Joe picks up the guitar from its lonesome corner of the room and hitches it over his shoulder carefully. It's Nick's guitar, inherited from their father, though by no official measure. He doesn't play it often when there's chores to be done, since he has a habit of getting consumed, unable to strum out a casual melody to work by. Joe knows a few simple tunes himself, but Joe's not taking it out to play himself. They both know that.  
  
In the end, Joe holds the guitar steady under his elbow and they ride off, racing to the pasture, their panting breath rising up behind them in trails like a noisy, whooping steam engine. Joe wins by a nose and accuses Nick of holding back, but Nick's thighs are too sore from the saddle for him to argue. He waves a hand, exhausted, and Joe dismounts, laughing openly at him. He helps Nick down.  
  
They walk the horses until the hilltop evens out, and they can see the herd grazing listlessly a way down the valley. They leave the cattle be, though, and lie side by side on a stretch of grass, listening to the cows chew the cud and doing the same themselves. The afternoon is slow and ageing; the clouds seem low enough to eavesdrop. Joe talks about the future a lot. He talks about one day catching a train across the country; having a different adventure in every state; meeting a girl trapped in an arranged marriage to an oil baron and eloping with her; buried treasure, stampedes, bounty hunters and brothels. Nick doesn't know how much of it Joe honestly believes, and how much yarn he spins just to amuse Nick.  
  
Joe tires of storytelling after a while, just like he tires of everything, and passes Nick over the guitar. Nick sits cross-legged, his muddy soles making prints against his trousers, and picks out the chords of  _Amazing Grace_ , humming along a harmony. "Play one of yours," Joe says, interrupting. Nick hesitates. He feels safer with the old hymns and shanties, but there's a music in the air around him that makes him strum unfamiliar songs sometimes, chord sequences that he lifts from nature rather than his childhood. Some have words; some don't. Some are about Joe; some aren't.   
  
He starts in A minor and sings about open, untamed spaces, and faith, and rebirth. Joe nods along, tapping out percussion on his kneecaps and the side of his boots. Nick's horse Costello wanders over to listen, nudging at the back of Nick's neck with her muzzle and cocking her ears curiously. Joe's eyes are closed, his hands moving with the melody, even after Nick fades to a stop, saying awkwardly, "That's about it, then."  
  
"Sounds good," Joe murmurs, keeping his eyes shut. "We should head into town one day. I bet people would pay to hear you."  
  
"Where?" Nick laughs a little, sceptically.  
  
"You know! Places. In the bars."   
  
"Sure thing, Joe."  
  
Joe seems to jerk awake, and he leans over suddenly, wrapping his hand around the neck of the guitar. "I'm serious! We could travel around, earn a little, live a little. You can play and I'll look dashing and seduce all the ladies into giving us loads of money." Joe has this dazzled look in his eyes, the kind he gets when there's a thunderstorm threatening the horizon. The thrill of the unknown dances around his dark pupils. "We could do it, Nick, me and you. We could leave right now. We should—we  _should_." He grabs Nick's wrist and tries to pull him to his feet, but Nick just laughs, tugs him back down. Joe lands astride him and they tussle for a minute, grass sticking wetly to the back of Nick's head until, quite abruptly, Joe slaps his fist down into the ground hard and shouts, "Why are you  _laughing at me_?"  
  
His voice doesn't echo, just cuts through the atmosphere, all edge. It winds Nick. "I'm not—Joseph, I thought we were just fooling."  
  
"Can't you take me  _seriously_  for once?" Joe begs, his mouth taut with frustration. Nick looks up at him, searching for clues, but Joe has closed down, his eyes strangely muted. "I want to go away from here with you, Nicky. Don't you want that?"  
  
Nick puts his hand on Joe's chest. He means to ground him, but pushes too hard, nearly shoving Joe away. "This isn't some stopgap," Nick tells him incredulously. " _This_  is our life, Joe. That's just it. You can't keep running away from it."  
  
Some emotional alchemy takes place in Joe, and he seems to transform into marble right in front of Nick. He's stolid and cold all of a sudden, and the wind whips his hair around his face though Joe doesn't bother to tuck it back. He stands up, painfully silent, and walks over to his horse, mounting with a grunt. He cracks his heels against her soft belly, drawing out a harsh bray, and turns to gallop away from the herd; away from Nick.   
  
Nick calls after Joe. He doesn't hear or doesn't care. So Nick calls again.  
  


*

  
  
Joe is pacing the stables by the time Nick follows him back. He looks animal and angry, and his knuckles are bloody red and splintered where he's punched the wall. Nick remembers, very vaguely, seeing Joe like this once before, when he was no taller than a table leg and their mother passed away. It was a part of their life slipping away forever, and Nick wonders why Joe feels the same thing now. Joe is unrealistic and brash, but Nick still wants to kiss the back of his hand and pull the debris out from under his skin. "Joe—" he starts, even though he can't know what to say.  
  
"I know you think I'm useless," Joe tells him, his voice even and loud. "I know you think I don't do jack all around here."  
  
"Joe, that's not—"  
  
"Shut up, I'm still talking. I'm not—smart like you, or built like you, or good with the herd like Kevin. I just—" Joe gestures with his hands and can't seem to find what he means, searching wildly in the air in front of him. "—I don't  _care_ about all this. I care about you. I want to be with you. And you're here. But I'd rather be with you somewhere else. When we're not doing things together, I can't stand it, Nick. I can't stand the boredom. I can't stand the fucking routine." Joe stops, breathlessly. He's one footstep away from Nick, but doesn't reach out to touch him.  
  
Like a young horse, Joe is unbroken, and Nick knows he can't be the one to tame him. He can take Joe's hand, lead him, calm him when he's overwhelmed, but there is something about Joe that Nick can never own. Every time Joe goes off on his own to fight his boredom and reclaim a little part of the freedom he needs so badly, Nick is terrified he'll never come back. He wonders if he's just realising now.  
  
"I wish you'd settle," Nick says miserably.  
  
"Fuck," Joe mutters. He punches Nick's shoulder a bit too hard to be in jest, and Nick doesn't flinch, just lets him. And then Joe swears under his breath again, and pushes Nick back against the stable wall, and falls to his knees, boneless and resigned. He hooks his fingertips in Nick's belt loops and tugs down, sliding his trousers over his white hips and pressing his mouth against the skin there. Nick shudders a little, grabs a handful of Joe's hair to steady himself. They've never done it like this – always fingertips and hot palms, confident enough – and it seems somehow like Joe is giving something away as he puts his lips against the base of Nick's shaft, kissing him until he's hard. The wooden wall creaks under Nick's weight and grazes his skin, and all he can do is hold onto Joe as he takes him in his mouth, shallow at first, then deeper, choking, but deeper still. The horses whine beside them, and so does Nick.   
  
When he's done, Joe spits on the floor; hay and filth.  
  
Nick means to sleep across the room from Joe that night, but Joe sits on the edge of Kevin's bed and tugs him wordlessly down, undresses him, and wraps himself around Nick entirely. It's the quietest Joe's been in a long time. They sleep spooned in the bed together, pressed tight against the wall and tighter against each other.  
  


*

  
  
There's an inch of snow painted on the landscape, and when Nick jerks coldly awake, Joe and Kevin are gone.   
  
A deep and primeval panic settles instantly in his stomach: his first is thought that Joe has vanished. Joe has vanished and Kevin's gone searching for him through the opaque winter. Nick tries to quell himself with logic, because he's a rational boy. Since their maybe-argument, Joe has tried his best to calm his urges, to be better for Nick. He sets to his daily tasks with little complaint, saving up his energy to accost Nick's neck with his mouth, to let his fingers buzz over Nick's skin. He seems more aware of when he's toeing a line, and even if he still walks it waveringly, he at least has the good grace to be hangdog about it. Joe rode way out to the cliff one time, shooting lazily up at the eagles until he lost his footing on a small rock shelf; nothing broken, but he caught a wide gash that carved up his left leg. Kevin had patched it up while Nick handed him wet cloth to clean the wound. Joe had stayed housebound for two weeks after that, maybe the longest he'd been in one place for years, and he did not whine and did not mention freedom.  
  
Perhaps he's finally broken.  
  
Nick roots through the cupboard and pulls out his thickest coat and a pair of lined leather gloves; Kevin's massive winter boots that are too big for him. He wears them anyway, clumping out of the house to stand on the porch and watch the distant curve of the earth. He waits for over an hour, losing track of time. A steady, wet snow begins to fall, and still there is no dark speck on the horizon. Nick goes inside and fetches a thin sheet of tarpaulin, then returns to his perch, holding it over his head to keep the drizzle off his hair and shoulders.   
  
He can't tell what time it is from the grey-covered sky. Still, he guesses it's close to midday when a distant black blot appears and forms itself into his brothers: both of them. Nick breathes out shakily, a puff of worried air dissolving in front of him. He can hear Joe whooping excitedly in the distance, and runs out to meet them, his big boots and the snow slowing him down. He trudges on anyway.   
  
There's a heifer roped between them, struggling against the pull of the horses and kicking up a hell of a fuss. "Kevin spotted her this morning," Joe yells, as soon as Nick's within earshot. "What a beaut, eh?"  
  
"You were sleeping like a baby," Kevin calls. "Didn't want to wake you. I thought we'd be back by now, but she just didn't want to be caught. Mother's instinct, I guess."  
  
The cow is bloated to bursting point with a calf. She looks ready to pop.  
  
They get her in from the harsh cold of the field to the still cold of the stable, settling her in one of the horse's pens and laying the floor with blankets. Kevin ushers them all out, leaving nature to look after the cow. "She won't birth if we're standing guard all night," he says, rubbing his hands down against his thighs. His hands are red raw with rope burn, but he doesn't wince. "It'll spook her too much. She'll be a Ma by morning, no doubt about that."  
  
Joe is bristling with electricity and excitement. He bounds around Nick as he boils water for a hot bath, describing every detail and then some about his and Kevin's heroic roping of the cow, how it nearly trampled Kevin but Joe valiantly saved the day with brute strength and nerves of steel. "You're a wonder," Nick says, smiling and poking Joe's hip playfully.  
  
"I'm trying," Joe replies, all his energy making his voice tremor. "Let me have this, please."  
  
Nick's hand slips down and around Joe's, and he squeezes. "Okay," he says, nodding.  
  
They fill up the tub until the room fills with damp steam, and top it up with ice cold water from the barrel out back, old rainwater and melted snow. A few clusters of ice melt instantly against the boiling heat. Joe plays at balancing the empty bucket on one finger, then tires, going out to check on the heifer. "There's no need," Kevin says, shrugging out of his braces.  
  
"No, I think you should," Nick says, his chin up. He says it gently enough not to patronise; significantly enough that Joe barks out a  _yessir_  and shoves Nick lightly on the shoulder.   
  
Kevin eases himself achingly into the water after Joe has left. His body seems bulky and bruised, the product of hard labour, but as familiar to Nick as Joe's. He notices how they are the same, how they're different: Kevin's hair a little fairer, his arms a touch more defined. Nick grabs a bar of soap and kneels at the back of the tub, absently rubbing his soapy hands over Kevin's shoulder blades, massaging between them with his thumbs. Kevin leans into it, sighing, stretching out. They don't talk for a while, and then he says quietly, without expanding, "You guys fought?"  
  
"Kind of. It's sorted now."  
  
"He seems easier," Kevin says, exhaling.  
  
"It's hard for him," Nick goes on, frowning at the words and the knots in Kevin's back.  
  
"I don't think it's so hard," Kevin says. He reaches back, his wet hand seeking out Nick's face and dripping lukewarm water up his bare arms. "I think he'll be fine as long as he's got you."  
  
Nick takes Kevin's wrist, guides it to his cheek, pressing it there. He kisses Kevin's palm, appreciative, and rocks up on his knees, high enough that he can tilt his head down and kiss Kevin properly. Upside down, he can feel Kevin's nose nudging against his chin. Nick mouths lazily against Kevin's top lip, holding his face between his palms. Kevin's mouth is hot, but his skin is already cooling with the bathwater.  
  
They all have each other.   
  
Joe is standing in the doorway when Nick sits back on his haunches, watching them. Nick scrubs at Kevin's back a bit too hard, staring at the imperfections in his skin. Joe takes off his coat and hangs it over the back of a chair, and toes off his boots, and walks past them into the bedroom. Kevin says, "Joe," and maybe Nick says it too. Either way, Joe doesn't reply.  
  
Sometime deep in the night, Nick crawls over to where Joe is huddled against the wall and puts his hand on Joe's shoulder. "Please still be here when I wake up," Nick whispers against his ear. It comes out far more pleading than he ever intended. He needs Joe to know he would never betray him; that Joe has him, and really, truly, they all have each other.  
  
Joe still doesn't reply.  
  


*

  
  
There's an orchestra in the air when Nick shudders into consciousness, a cacophony of distant noises that he can't decipher. Joe is not next to him. He can hear bleating and the wind and shouts and shuffling, dancing sounds that don't make any sense, and Joe  _isn't next to him_. Nick throws off his bedcovers, shivering instantly. He wraps it around himself, stepping into his boots barefoot, and runs for the door, not even slowing down as he hits it, just barrelling through shoulder first. Everything's louder outside, and brighter. The snow is ankle-thick now, having fallen steadily all night, although the sky is clearing and Nick can suddenly see for miles. There are figures moving in the snow, falling repeatedly, and Nick rubs at his eyes to try and form what he's seeing into some semblance of reality.  
  
Two figures. The snow has spat and drifted around them as they circle each other. Trails of footprints from the stable and back; some track like a heavy stone has been dragged across the way. Nick takes two steps forward and clutches at the porch railing to hold himself up.  
  
Joe. It's Joe. He raises his hand, fist curled, yelling something uncontrollably feral, and pounds his fist down into the face of whomever he's holding. They go down together with the absolute force of it. Someone spatters blood into the snow, from their mouth, maybe, or their temple. Joe's fist goes up again, down like a hammer, rhythmic now. He's calling and calling and  _screaming_  and Nick doesn't know if he's even saying words anymore.  
  
It whacks Nick like an anvil blow that he doesn't know where Kevin is. He watches the figure at Joe's feet clutch at his legs, scratching feebly, totally ineffectual. Joe kicks out, catches the side of his head. He kicks again, aiming properly this time. Nick's feet are rooted to the porch, as though he has aged decades in the last second, unable to move of his own accord.  
  
Kevin dashes out of the stable, and Nick's legs give way, crashing him to the wooden floor. Kevin is yelling something, waving his hands frantically at Joe, and Joe stops briefly, holding the limp body below him by the scruff of its collar. He shouts back at Kevin, shaking his head. His captor is still conscious, still trying to fight back, his arms wrapping around Joe's waist and digging uselessly at his sides. Joe ignores Kevin. He slaps the man down easily, like he's chastising a bad dog, and then goes to finish the job with his heels.  
  
Kevin links eyes with Nick, finally. He looks awful, pale and scared. The expression is so foreign on his features that Nick inhales sharply, the cold air hurting his throat. Kevin's hands are stained with blood.   
  
Nick clambers into the house somehow, right the way through; grabs his shotgun from the kitchen table and drags it outside. It feels too heavy in his hands, so he hefts it up to his shoulder, perching it there. It's loaded, always is, and he cocks it roughly, aims high, and fires. The sound rips through the morning like a sudden stab. Joe bodily jumps back, staring wildly towards the house, seeing Nick for the first time. Hands trembling with the cold and the deep sickness in his stomach, Nick shoots into the sky again, a second warning.   
  
It's unnecessary. Joe has stopped. He allows Kevin to run over to him, to forcibly walk him back to the house. Kevin seems to be half holding him up. Nick lowers his gun and takes his finger shakily off the trigger. He runs out to Joe, ducks under his free arm and helps carry him. He looks like he's marched through a slaughterhouse.   
  
Nick doesn't look behind them.  
  


*

  
  
Kevin sits Joe down on the edge of the bed and cleans his hands off with a damp shirt and makes him spill. Nick, unable to keep still, lights a fire in the hearth and stokes it erratically, feeling the heat grow against his face and Joe's words patter against his back.  
  
He hadn't slept good, Joe says. There were reasons, but it just came down to the fact he couldn't sleep. So he got up early, meaning to check on the cow. He figured she'd have birthed by now. It was still dark when he went outside: not pitch black, but dull and glacial, grey and clear. There was a path of heavy footsteps from the woods to the stable. Joe never thought to call for back up. He just burst in, and found the thief wrestling a chain around the cow's solid neck, the newborn calf wet and trembling at his feet. "He must've seen us rope her in yesterday," Joe says thickly. "Must've known she'd be weak. Easy to handle, you know. We should've stayed the night with her."  
  
Nick turns around, looking over his shoulder. Kevin is wrapping strips of cotton around Joe's knuckles. They're so bloody and messed up they looked practically pulped.  
  
He rests the poker against the side of the hearth, walks out of the room without a word, goes into the yard, and retches dryly against the side of the house. Nick doubles over, his eyes watering, but nothing comes up. He just heaves. He goes to the water barrel, cracking a hole through the top layer of ice with the side of his fist, and cups the water in his hands, bringing it up to his mouth to swill and spit. He chokes at the cold of it, and it's enough to wrench a couple of fat tears from his eyes. He scrubs at them furiously with his sleeve.   
  
He glances out over the pasture on his way back inside. It looks a state, snowdrifts and patches of dead grass and watery blood. There's nobody there now, though.  
  
Joe is on his feet when Nick returns. He's obviously said his piece. Nobody is saying anything at all now. The wind rattles against the house, but the walls are strong, the foundations solid. The house stays still as stone.  
  
"Are you angry at me?" Joe asks. He asks Nick. His voice is quiet and sorry and his shoulders are hunched. He doesn't look capable of nearly killing a man.  
  
Nick can't reply. He starts to shake his head, then stops, hesitant. Kevin has to answer for him. "He—worries about you, Joe. We both—Goddamnit, we both worry about you so much. You can be  _so selfish_  sometimes."  
  
Joe rankles at that, his stare turning on Kevin fiercely. "You just won't let me do right by you, will you? I was trying to _do_  something for once. For this fucking ranch. I was trying to  _protect_  your fucking livestock, Kevin."  
  
Kevin shakes his head wearily. It's a strange play for Nick to watch, his brothers quietly warring like this. He wonders if it has been building for a long time. "It was one cow," Kevin says, somewhat bitterly. "It was just one cow. We'd have survived. You don't do things for the good of the ranch, Joe. You do them for Nick."  
  
Nick breathes in. The fire crackles sharply.   
  
"You don't have to protect Nick from his life, Joe," Kevin says softly, putting a careful hand on Joe's shoulder. "You don't have to impress him anymore. What's he going to do when you pick a fight you can't win? What are we going to do then?"  
  
It doesn't seem like Joe has an answer to that. Nick watches Kevin pull Joe towards him, his arms sliding tightly around Joe's shoulders. Joe clutches weakly at his side, clinging to the tails of his shirt. He looks suddenly so feeble, just a kid out of his depth. "You're such a fucking idiot," Kevin mumbles into Joe's neck, his eyes closed. Joe reaches out blindly, seeking Nick, so Nick goes to them. It's colder away from the fire, but Joe's body is warm with leftover anger and spent pain. Nick wraps his arms around Joe's back, threading them around his chest. It's an accusation and apology and forgiveness all in one, and the three of them just stand there, more of a whole than they have ever been.   
  
The bed is right next to them. It's a natural place to progress.   
  
Everyone is sensitive and sore, and that makes them more careful. Joe lies between his brothers and lets them envelop him for once, doesn't try to run. Nick does what he's needed to do for hours, maybe days: he kisses Joe, deeply and slowly and absolutely. He puts his hands against Joe's face and holds him close, lying half on top of him in the small bunk. Nick's lips are more pert than Joe's, softer, his face tender from emotion, and it almost hurts to kiss him like this. There's no coaxing, both of their mouths simply opening up for each other. Nick makes a quiet moan. Joe suckles against his bottom lip, then licks it, soothing.   
  
Nick pulls back for air. Joe's face is ruddy and intense below him. Kevin's hand is stroking through Joe's hair lightly, a constant placation.   
  
Nick leans over, mindful of Joe's battered hands, and puts his lips against Kevin's. Joe panics, grabs for Nick, still terrified of losing him even as he's right there, pressed against Joe like a solid weight. Nick kisses Kevin again, then turns back to Joe, lips and eyes all fierce. "I'm still here," he says, making every word known. "Listen to me, Joe. I'm _still here_."  
  
He crawls down Joe's body, his hands winding like rivulets along Joe's neck and chest, and kneels over Joe's legs, unbuttoning his trousers. Kevin puts a calming hand on Joe's stomach as he jerks up, Nick's breath suddenly too hot on his skin. He feels like he's burning. Nick laves at Joe's pelvis with his tongue, as if to cool him. He slides Joe's trousers down to his thighs.   
  
Nick is exhausted through to his very marrow, tired from emotion and effort and upset. He rests his forehead against Joe's skin. "I can't lose you," he whispers, a raw and bold admission.   
  
"I'm not—" Joe says, trembling. "—You won't." He puts one hand on the back of Nick's head, the other around Kevin's shoulders. There is a great wilderness outside calling for Joe, but for once he seems absolutely grounded, here, in this moment with his brothers. His eyes are more focussed than they've ever been.  
  
Nick kisses the head of Joe's cock, laps around it with his soft tongue. Joe utters some wildcat sound, but it's smothered quickly as Kevin leans down and kisses Joe quiet. Joe bucks from the hip, and Nick has to take a moment to stare at them, Kevin's lips pressed for the first time against Joe's. He murmurs something Nick can't hear, laying steady, small kisses against Joe's open mouth. Joe clutches him tightly.   
  
Nick sucks Joe off without finesse, his chin wet and his lips wide. He puts his hands on Joe's thighs to keep him down, rubbing soft circles with his thumbs. Kevin slips a hand under Joe's shirt, pressing just there, leaving lazy kisses on his mouth and cheeks and forehead. None of them can hear the cruel wind, the distant call of wolves, plaintive and lonely. They can only hear each other: breath and pulse and life.  
  


*

  
  
Nick wakes with the birdsong, and Joe's arm snug around his neck, and Kevin's fingers loosely touching his cheek. He decides to stay awhile. 


End file.
